Getting Peak Performance In Egg Whites

December 23, 1999|By LYNNE BENNETT The San Francisco Chronicle

Is the centuries-old tradition that says copper bowls are imperative for making meringues fact or myth? Do egg whites beat higher when they're at room temperature or straight from the refrigerator? Does cream of tartar help?

These are just some of the variables that can affect the best way to beat egg whites, which can make or break souffles, meringues, cakes, chiffon pies and mousses.

To find the best way to whip whites, the food department whipped egg whites straight from the refrigerator and at room temperature, in a stainless steel bowl and in a copper one, and with and without cream of tartar.

For each batch, we used a half cup of egg whites (approximately 3 extra-large whites). We beat the whites with a hand-held mixer with a standard beater attachment at low speed for 1 minute, then gradually up to high speed for approximately 3 minutes until the whites formed moist stiff peaks. When we used cream of tartar, we added a half-teaspoon to the whites after they became foamy.

We found the best way to achieve firm, creamy fine-textured, stable egg whites is to beat room-temperature whites in a copper bowl. The whites rose to the greatest volume and stayed there for the longest time. The copper in the bowl also acted as a stabilizer to help prevent the effects of overbeating. We brought the egg whites to room temperature by placing uncracked eggs in a bowl of hot-from-the-tap water for about 5 minutes. This made separating the whites from the yolks a little more difficult than if the eggs had come straight from the refrigerator, but it also made beating them easier.

The worst results came from beating refrigerated whites in a stainless steel bowl without cream of tartar. These whites had the least volume and were most fragile, breaking down quickly. The texture of the whites was coarse.

We found that adding cream of tartar to room-temperature whites beaten in a stainless steel bowl improved the results dramatically. The whites stayed at full volume nearly twice as long as the whites beaten in the stainless steel bowl without the cream of tartar. The texture of the beaten whites will not be as fine as the whites from the copper bowl, but if a copper bowl is unavailable, cream of tartar can make up some of the difference.

When egg whites are overbeaten, they separate. Cream of tartar mimics copper in helping stabilize the foam.